of the deer (cervid) family, including white-
LIVESCIENCE
The beginning of the end?
Could 'Zombie Deer' Disease
Spread to Humans?
Deer in at least 22 U.S. states and parts of
Canada have died from a neurological
disease called "chronic wasting disease,"
according to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC). But could
this illness, which is sometimes dubbed
"zombie deer disease," spread to people,
just as "mad cow disease" has done in the
past?
Chronic wasting disease can cause a
number of symptoms in animals, including
drastic weight loss, a lack of coordination,
drooling, listlessness or a "blank" facial
expression, and a lack of fear of people,
according to the CDC. It infects members
tailed deer, mule deer, reindeer, moose
and elk.
The disease was first discovered in
Colorado in 1967, according to the CDC,
and so far, no cases in humans have ever
been reported.
Indeed, the infectious proteins that cause
chronic wasting disease — called prions —
don't easily jump between species, said
Mark Zabel, associate director of the Prion
Research Center at Colorado State
University. But it's known that these
proteins can evolve to infect other species,
Zabel said. For example, the type of prion
that causes so-called bovine spongiform
encephalopathy, or "mad cow disease,"
was transmitted to people who ate infected
meat (mostly in the United Kingdom in the
1980s and '90s), resulting in several
hundred human infections.
"We have every reason to suspect" that
chronic wasting disease could pass to
humans, Zabel told Live Science. The
disease "may still be evolving, and it may
be just a matter of time before a prion
evolves in a deer or elk that is capable of
infecting a human, he said."